Questions to Ask a Potential Babysitter
An interview for parents hiring a babysitter, whether a neighbor's teenager for date nights or a professional sitter for regular hours. It runs from logistics and rates through emergency scenarios and discipline to references.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How long have you been babysitting, and what ages have you looked after?
Why ask it
Ages matter more than years. Someone comfortable with a seven-year-old may never have changed a diaper or handled a baby who will not stop crying, and the gap is worth finding now rather than at 8pm.
Which nights and hours are you actually free, and how much notice do you need?
Why ask it
You are testing reliability, not availability in principle. A sitter who says anytime usually has a school-year schedule, a sports season, or another job that will surface as a cancellation in three weeks.
How do you get here and home, and does that limit how late you can stay?
Why ask it
A sitter who relies on a lift from a parent, a last bus, or a lift home from you has a hard stop that nobody mentioned. Settle who is driving at midnight before you make a reservation.
What do you charge, and what changes the rate: more children, a later finish, a holiday?
Why ask it
Getting the whole structure now avoids the doorstep negotiation while you are holding your coat. Watch whether they have thought about it at all, since a sitter with no rate for extra hours often feels quietly resentful about them later.
Have you handled bedtime on your own, start to finish?
Why ask it
Bedtime is the hardest hour and the reason most sitters are hired. Someone who has only done afternoons and playgrounds may be excellent and still be unprepared for a child who gets out of bed eleven times.
Are you trained in infant and child CPR and first aid, and when did you last take it?
Why ask it
Certifications lapse, and the date tells you whether the training is live or a line on a form. If they are not trained, you can decide to pay for a course, which is cheaper than most single evenings out.
What would you do if my toddler started choking?
Why ask it
You want the sequence, not reassurance: recognize it, back blows and chest thrusts appropriate to the age, call emergency services if it does not clear. Blank answers or a plan to look it up on a phone tell you the training is missing.
If a child fell and hit their head, when would you call me and when would you call 911?
Why ask it
The judgment you are checking is whether they will call you at all. Sitters who fear being blamed tend to wait and downplay, so say explicitly that you would rather be called for nothing than told afterward.
What would you do if you could not reach me or my partner at all?
Why ask it
Phones die and movie theaters have no signal, so there needs to be a named second adult and an address. A sitter who has never considered this is fine; a sitter who says they would just wait it out is a problem.
Have you ever given a child medicine, used an inhaler, or used an epinephrine auto-injector?
Why ask it
If any of your children has asthma or a food allergy, this is the most important question on the page. The answer decides whether you demonstrate the device and write the plan down, or whether this is the wrong sitter for your household.
If my four-year-old flatly refuses to get in the bath, what do you do?
Why ask it
Refusals are the actual work of childcare. Look for offering a choice, giving a countdown, or dropping the bath entirely; a sitter whose only tools are bargaining with candy or picking the child up is going to have a long evening.
What do you do when a child hits you, or hits their sibling?
Why ask it
This is where you find out whether their instincts match your house rules. Any mention of spanking, yelling, or withholding food ends the interview, and vague talk about being firm should be followed with what that looks like.
Tell me about the last time you sat: what did you actually do, hour by hour?
Why ask it
A concrete account is hard to invent and tells you the pace they are used to. If the whole evening is one long blur with a movie in the middle, that is the evening you are buying.
How much screen time do you usually end up using, honestly?
Why ask it
The word honestly does real work here, because everyone knows the approved answer. A sitter who admits to a movie at the end of a long stretch and asks what your limit is has told you they will follow the rule they are given.
What is your phone doing while you are working?
Why ask it
Nobody says they will scroll all night, so listen for a specific practice instead: on silent, in a pocket, checked after bedtime. It is also your opening to say plainly that photos of your children should not be posted anywhere.
Would you let anyone into the house while you are here?
Why ask it
The expected answer is nobody without asking you first, including friends, partners, and unexpected deliveries. Hesitation here matters more than almost anything else they will say.
How do you feel about following rules you disagree with?
Why ask it
There will be one: no snacks after seven, no jumping on the bed, the light stays on. You are looking for someone who will follow it and raise the disagreement with you afterward instead of quietly overriding you in your own house.
Has anything ever gone wrong on a job, and what did you do?
Why ask it
Everyone with real experience has a story: a locked door, a bleeding lip, a child who would not stop screaming. A sitter who claims nothing has ever gone wrong is either new or not telling you things, and both change how you brief them.
What would make you not want to come back?
Why ask it
Asked directly, sitters name the things nobody warns parents about: coming home much later than promised, paying late, undisclosed pets, or a child's behavior they were not told about. Fixing those is how you keep a good sitter for years.
Can I speak to two families you have sat for, including the most recent one?
Why ask it
The word recent is the test. References who are all relatives, or all from two years ago, usually mean the last job ended badly, and reluctance to give a current family's number tells you more than the eventual reference call will.
Hiring, briefing, and keeping a good sitter
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the first paid evening
Pay for a trial while you are home
Book an hour or two at your normal rate and stay in the house doing something else. You will learn more from watching them get down on the floor with your children, or not, than from any answer above.
Look at the certificate, not the claim
Ask to see the CPR or first aid card and check the date on it. If you are hiring a professional sitter or nanny for regular hours, ask about a background check and a driving record too, and expect a serious candidate to have both ready.
Ask your children afterward, separately
A young child will tell you what happened in plain terms: what they played, what they ate, whether the sitter was on their phone. Ask on the following day rather than at bedtime, when everyone is tired and agreeable.
Agree the money in writing, even informally
A text confirming the rate, the hours, the finish time, and how you pay prevents the awkward doorstep moment. For regular hours, write down what happens when you cancel late or come home early.
What to leave on the counter
- Your cell numbers, the address of where you are going, and a second adult who can get here in ten minutes
- The children's full names, dates of birth, and your address written out, since a panicked sitter on a 911 call needs to read it rather than recall it
- Allergies, medicines, doses, and where the inhaler or auto-injector is, with a demonstration rather than a description
- The doctor's name and number, and the nearest urgent care or emergency department
- Bedtime routine in order, including the bits that seem obvious: which blanket, which light, how many books
- What the children may eat and what is off limits, plus what the sitter is welcome to help themselves to
- House basics: door locks, alarm code, wifi, thermostat, where the flashlight is, and which room the dog stays out of
- Your rules in one short list: screens, snacks, visitors, going outside, photos
Signals worth taking seriously
Reluctance about references or a background check
Anyone charging professional rates for regular care should expect both. Offers of a discount for cash in place of paperwork are worth declining.
Talking about a previous family with contempt
A sitter who mocks another household's children, mess, or rules to a stranger in an interview will do the same about yours. It also tends to travel with a loose sense of privacy.
Answers that never mention asking you
In the emergency, discipline, and visitor scenarios, the good answers all involve contacting you at some point. A sitter who resolves every hypothetical alone is describing a house where you find out afterward.
Your child's reaction
Children are unreliable narrators about detail and quite reliable about whether someone was warm to them. Persistent reluctance to be left with a particular sitter, with no other explanation, is enough reason to stop booking them.
Keeping the sitter you like
- Come home when you said, or text as soon as you know you will be late and pay for the extra time without being asked.
- Pay at the end of the evening, in the way you agreed, without needing to be reminded.
- Leave the kitchen usable and the children fed, so the job starts at bedtime rather than at a pile of dishes.
- Tell them about the hard thing in advance: the new baby's reflux, the tantrum phase, the child who wakes at eleven.
- Book the next date before they leave, since good sitters are lost to whoever asks first.
- Raise problems directly and early, in a short sentence, rather than quietly not booking them again.